Industrial site in Ballyvergin

First identified in centre-line testing (00E0379) for the re-alignment of the N25 Wexford town to New Ross road, and completely excavated (00E0473) subsequently. It is situated at the bottom of a S-facing slope with a small N-S stream 10m to the E. Seven pits, one hearth and 25 stake-holes were uncovered. The largest pit (dims 2.4m x 1.98m; D 0.77m) may have functioned as a trough. The hearth (dims 1.7m x 0.74m; D 0.1m) was associated with the stake-holes and deposits with burnt mound material, but the pits contained large quantities of metalworking waste, which probably didn’t derive from the immediate location. Charcoal from one pit produced a C14 date of cal BC 1650-1420. The latest features at the location were parallel ditches (Wth c. 1-1.2m; D c. 0.4m) that may have enclosed a small rectangular field. They were on either side of a field bank and could be relatively recent. (Noonan 2002; Noonan and Johnston 2006) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 5 November, 2012